Why you shouldn’t quit your job even if you hate it. At least not yet.

If you’ve recently bought a pot plant for your desk at work, hoping it’s going to turn work into a carnival for you, I’m sorry. That ship has sailed, honey. Move on. Take your pot plant with you, sure, but if things are that bad, it may just be time to figure out what next.

Just DON’T do a Hollywood and start packing your box of staplers and post-its quite yet [they’re not really company property are they?]. Not before you know what you REALLY WANT – pot plants and all.

Don’t jump till you’re crystal. Clear, that is. About what you want. What’s you’re ideal? Not your that-looks-better-than-this-piece-of-s#*t-job, but your WHOA-MAMA-LET-ME-AT-IT-JOB. Yes. That one. The one you haven’t written on a piece of paper yet because you think it’s too much to ask. Outrageous really, and to think you could work a four-day week and earn the same money. Well. Don’t be ridiculous.

[This is my favourite part of my client’s goals – doing fewer hours for the same or more money. Spectacular. Wait a minute, am I supposed to have favourites??]

So, get that piece of paper out and write EVERYTHING your heart desires down. Here are some stimulating starters: Great money ($K p.a.). Collaborative colleagues. A boss with some semblance of EQ (just kidding – BE SPECIFIC + POSITIVE). A boss known for his/her leadership and as a capable mentor. Location. Benefits. Company values. Etc. If you want a desk that goes up and down, write it down. If you want to know they have chocolate biscuits in the staff kitchen or a full paleo lunch available, write that down. If you want to know they are sustainable down to re-usable loo paper, fine. If you want to be able to work from home two mornings a week so you can email in your PJ’s, write that swag down.

Dealing with the blah-blah

The trick to finding work you L O V E is being truly honest with yourself about what you really want to do and how you want to do it. If you have the old programmed blah-blah riffing away in your head while you’re writing it down, try this…

Get out another piece of paper and write down everything the dissenter in your head has to say. All of it. Don’t be afraid of writing it down. Swear words and all. You don’t have it to give it to your Nana to read, for goodness sake. Get this s#*t out. That there is a mindfulness practice. A super simple and straight up way to look that self critic of yours right in the eye. Look at what it has to say. Check it out. And know this: these words are just electrical impulses firing in your brain, they are old ideas mapped from tiny childhood moments your brain made the best sense it could of at the time, and they are outdated for the person you are today sitting here writing down your dream job.

Once you see these suckers on the page, the words are just that. Words. Not real. Not gospel or patented or the holy truth by anyone’s reckoning. Just old neural programming.

Would you let a bunch of dodgy wiring stop you lavishing your Christmas tree with gauche pinecone shaped lights? [Don’t ask me where you buy those!]

I don’t think you would. I think you’d sort out the wiring, or plug in somewhere else. So plug in somewhere else. Start focusing on what you really want to create for yourself, what you really want work to look like, and make that the main thing. Make that the story you tell yourself – what it will be like, where you could put the word out to people, what job sites you can look at. Get focused and get busy.

Pants on fire

One of the MAIN reasons I ask people to really nail down what they want before they go off applying for new jobs or grabbing a voluntary redundancy [is that really a thing?] is because the risk when you are unhappy-fed up-disgusted-apoplectic about your job is that anything else can look like greener pastures. I’ve seen time and again people jumping ship because they see another one approaching, and it turns out it wasn’t that different from the last one. But they’re on board now. They’ve got their uniform and it’s all on. Then they realise their new boss is an astronomical ass wipe. [That’s like a wet wipe but a little less emotionally intelligent.] Suddenly they realise they’ve gone out of the proverbial fry pan and into the fire. Sigh.

There are few things that can make one more disconsolate, or fall slightly short of truly losing the plot once and for all. Hell, if you’re going to make the move, you want to know it’s going to be the right one, right?

Ending up with your pants on fire can be quite easily avoided with a little self-reflection IN ADVANCE and issuing oneself with the permission to really OWN UP to what you WANT.

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So go do it. Get out a piece of paper and write it down. My Ideal Role/Job/Business …